Limeño Lunches
"It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words, like 'What about lunch?'" - A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh books
Three days of lunches, as dinners were back at the apartment either with leftovers or a pasta I whipped up for one of them…
Bucatini, bacon, pork leg, squash, tomato, broad beans, red onion, garlic, chili, mint, feta cheese. That covered dinner for two the night Henry left, and part of dinner for me the next.
On to the lunches!
One of those “best of” articles again. Actually, it was the same article that recommended Chicharrones del Inca, for best tamales in the city. And that was mediocre at best. Why am I paying attention to this article? I should erase all its recommendations. Yet, here we are at Tamal Tabien (a play on words in Spanish - está mal está bien (it’s bad, it’s good), Av. Petit Thouars 4701, Miraflores, about a 20 minute walk from the apartment. There’s no indoor seating, just half a dozen tables on the sidewalk. Much of their trade seems to be “to go”. But it was never not busy, and with a short wait for a table.
They offer seven different types of tamales - more than we were going to sample at one lunch, but they offer a ronda of four tamales of your choice from their selection. You can mix and match as you please. Clockwise from 12:00 (do I have readers who don’t understand “clockwise”?) - a pork filled tamal arequipeño, made with dried white corn from Cuzco; a pork and yellow chili filled tamal chinchano, made from a mix of dried yellow corn from Cuzco and peanuts; a chicken filled tamal verde - we’d wanted the goat filled one, but they were out of it, the masa made from fresh corn and spinach from Piura; and a roasted pork loin tamal criollo made from dried yellow corn from Cuzco. All delicious! The arequipeño was our favorite. Individual tamales run $2, the ronda comes in at $6.75.
We finished off sharing a humita style candied yuca root filled with manjar blanco which is pretty much the same thing as dulce de leche - cooked down milk and sugar until it’s caramelized. Nice finish! And only $1.35.
Oh, lovely service, friendly, chatty, helpful. And, the first place I’ve been in Lima other than some fancy tourist spots that offers iced tea.
It’s noon, and I’m standing in front of Song Peruvian Cuisine Fusion, Av. Augusto Pérez Araníbar 2106 in San Isidro. The door’s locked, shades are down on all the windows, there’s no sign of any activity. I’ve knocked, I’ve rechecked my reservation. Nothing. I start considering where else to have lunch. As I’m about to request an Uber, the door suddenly springs open, and a young woman comes out and greets me.
“I was just wondering if you were even open.”
“We are. We open at 12:00 exactly.”
“That’s why I was wondering, since it’s 12:06.”
“We open at 12:00. It is now precisely 12:00.”
“Umm… okay.”
Not worth continuing this as an argument, I let myself be led to my table. Just to be clear, I have no problem with a place opening a couple of minutes late, if I can see that they’re there and probably about to open - but with all the shades drawn and no lights visible, it didn’t seem like that was the case. The place stays pretty much empty throughout lunch. A table of five is seated next to me about 45 minutes later. That’s it. But I’m seated. I do have to wait a few minutes as the waitstaff are having their pre-service meeting. One might think that pre-service was in the period of time prior to “precisely 12:00”.
Service is a bit stiff and formal. It’s not unfriendly, it’s just clear that everyone is trying very hard to be correct. The menu, online touted as a fusion of Chinese and Southeast Asian with Peruvian ingredients, is pretty classic Cantonese. There’s a small selection of dishes at the back of the menu listed as Fusion dishes, and a couple of dishes that could be tossed in the SE Asia category. None of them sound interesting, so I’m back to Canton.
I order up a couple of their dim sum, asking, clearly, for those first, and then a main course later. In short order these roast pork rice rolls are on the table. Beautiful presentation. Absolutely delicious. Some of the better rice rolls I’ve had, anywhere. A trio of sauces is on the table - hoisin, Peruvian ajicito, and Chinese chili oil. While the last packs the most punch, it’s just chili in oil. Here, a bright spot of Peruvian fusion arise - the ajicito, with its rocoto chili, cilantro, green onion, garlic, oil, and vinegar adds more complexity to the dish, and ought to be served instead of chili oil, everywhere.
My request to have these come as courses is completely ignored, as before I’ve finished the first rice roll, the other dumplings, and the main course, are on the table. “Each dish takes a precise amount of time to cook, and is sent out as it’s ready.” “Okay, but they didn’t all have to be started at the same time, you could have waited.” “The kitchen decides the precise timing of each dish, and they come out when they’re ready.” These guys are really big on precision, and not really seeing the hospitality angle. At least he left lids on each dish to keep them hot. These chicken and ginger soup dumplings are good, but no more than that - the dough isn’t delicate, it’s quite thick and chewy, and there’s little soup inside around the chicken meatball.
I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered a Chinese stir-fry that featured asparagus. Is this simply a variation on a theme? Perhaps filling in for Chinese celery, or bok choy, or something of that sort? Calamari, asparagus, some bell pepper, a lot of ginger, and just a slight hit of the promised XO sauce. I load it up with the Peruvian ajicito. It was tasty before I did that, it’s fantastic with the added heat (which I’d hoped would come from a more generous addition of XO).
The space is beautiful. The service and attitude is… uncomfortable. The food is good to very, very good, at least based on these three dishes. Pricing isn’t bad for what you get - the various dim sum run around $6-8 a plate, which for an upscale restaurant is fine. Most of the main courses run in the mid to high teens, $15-18. Still, I’d be hard-pressed to return. Attitude and service is a huge part of dining out. But if they offer takeout or delivery, I’d happily order.
When we were having dinner at Contraste the other night, I’d asked Ángelo, the chef, if there was anywhere new that I shouldn’t miss. Without hesitation he suggested the lunch-only tasting menu at Piedra | Cocina Libre, Jirón Leonardo Barbieri 1255, here in Surquillo. We’re on a vaguely combo industrial residential back street the far side by a few blocks of the Surquillo No. 2 market. Not where I’d expect to find a “nicer” restaurant.
The chef, Sebastián Vega, opened up this spot recently - he’s the big guy in the middle there. Being a small place, with just five tables, he’s back and forth between the kitchen and dining area constantly. He greets each table, discusses the menu (which is not known in advance), checks on allergies, likes and dislikes, and even serves most of the food. The waitress seems mostly to serve beverages and clear plates. But could we have that cutie in the kitchen pop out to the table once or twice?
I’m seated next to one other solo luncher, Carlos, and we get to talking. He’s a Peruvian who’s lived for the last twenty years or so in Chile, and this is his first visit home to Lima in six years. Friends at his company told him he had to come check this place out. He’s a big foodie. We compare notes as we go. There’s a table of three guys already seated when we arrive, and in short order, two guys at the table next to us who look vaguely homeless, but are really into food, and then a trio of young influencer types take the table in the middle.
The menu isn’t identical for everyone, though there’s clearly a base. But given the whole allergies, likes and dislikes thing, there are modifications for each person along the way - and we did see a few different courses being served at different tables. Everyone, it appears, started with this smoked white clam and octopus chalaquita. Those of you know know Peruvian food probably know chorros or conchas a la chalaca, which is basically a ceviche of mussels or scallops in a lemon, onion, and chili cure that’s popular in Lima’s food markets. Here, the seafood is smoked (really, it’s torched with a handheld butane torch, something the chef is clearly very fond of - in fact, it seems to be used, almost to excess, in almost every sushi or sushi adjacent restaurant here). The cure is tangerine and passionfruit with onion and chili. This is excellent.
Second course is a carpaccio of prawns, once again torched. It’s covered with a pool of a prawn head reduction sauce, cilantro oil, fine dice of chili, and lime zest. We’d originally been informed that there were a couple of dishes that were a size for sharing, and if we didn’t mind, he was going to bring one dish and let us split it. In the end, he actually just served us each the size for two people.
Flavor-wise, I think this was my favorite course, but it was so small… there’s like half a razor clam left on the shell - where’s the rest of it? It’s served over black garlic oil, topped with fried leeks, chili, and chives, and then the whole thing sprinkled over with nutritional yeast to give a “parmesan-like flavor”. This is one I’m probably going to play with.
Here, Carlos and I had a momentary diversion of paths. We both got the charela, the weakfish I mentioned in the previous post, layered with sliced avocado, and lightly cured in a mix of leche de tigre and ponzu sauce, topped with strips of chili and finely chopped ginger. In the questioning period before the meal, the chef had asked about sea urchin. I’m a huge fan, Carlos is not. I got two “tongues” of it added to my plate. I mean, yeah, I like sea urchin, but this just felt like a gratuitous add-on. The flavor didn’t work with the fish or the sauce. And the extra $5 for those, as it turned out, feels excessive. Especially as it came up again in a later course for another $5.
The torch is back, this time at the table, with a single slice of trout sashimi, soy-marinated tapioca pearls, and teriyaki butter. The chef expressed to one and all as he served this one that it’s his favorite course. It was good. Definitely not either of our favorite.
The last two courses are more substantial (there are seven total courses, in case you lost count). A ceviche of sole, prawns, razor clams, and calamari - plus hidden in there are a couple more sea urchin tongues. The cure is a classic leche de tigre with pureed litchi added. It makes the ceviche a little sweet, but it was still quite good.
And, finally, the arroz meloso de mariscos - what should amount to a creamy, risotto-like rice dish with shellfish. Neither of us liked this one. It was, once again, torched at the table, to give “crunch” to the surface. I guess maybe to sort of simulate a vague homage to concolón, the crispy rice at the bottom of the pot. Here’s my guess, and I could be wrong on this… they just cooked up short grain rice “regular”, which leaves it all separate and slightly dry, and then to serve it, they added some broth and stirred it a lot to try to get that creamy risotto texture. The problem is, all the starch that normally creates that as you slow cook a risotto is gone by then. This was just sticky, gluey rice, and it tasted very strange too - they’d finished it with scallop coral butter, which had gone really bitter. Interestingly, neither the chef nor waitress asked.
Carlos and I paid our bills and said goodbye to each other, I toddled off back to the apartment. I like the space. I like the service. I like the concept. Mostly, I liked the food quite a bit, though not all of it. And I’m never a fan of torching stuff in front of guests at the table. Yeah, it’s a cute bit of theater, but you leave them with the smell of burning butane hovering around them. And torching something with a flame is not the same thing as “smoking” it. Two very different processes and flavor profiles. The pace is extremely rapid - there’s no time for a breath between courses - from the time I sat down to the time I was out the door, was 55 minutes. For seven courses. As soon as you put your fork down from eating one, someone is clearing the plate and the next plate is already being carried to the table.
There’s no set price, though the base is apparently around $40, with modifications depending on what is changed, added, or subtracted from your personal menu. Mine, because of the sea urchins ended up $50 (plus beverages), while Carlos’ was only $45 because he only had them on one instead of two courses. Would I go back? Probably, but not often. I’m glad I did go at least once.
And let’s call it here. I have things to go pick up in the market!